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Friday, June 15, 2007

This according to an article on the BBC's website, which also states that Liverpool are interested in Bent but that he would not be their top choice striker. His current club, Charlton Athletic, have rated him at 17 million pounds, which is no small sum of money ($33.5 million US). The fact that that sum is only half a million US dollars short of what Manchester United paid for Owen Hargreaves shows how highly Charlton values the 23-year old English striker and also greatly narrows down the list of teams who can afford Bent. He has scored 31 goals in two seasons for Charlton (68 games) and at his young age, the potential to become a special player is there.

Bent has already turned down a 17 million pound offer from West Ham which indicates his desire to play top-level soccer for a team playing preferably in the Champions League. Tottenham have been reluctant to offer that amount of money, which seems to be the only thing holding this transfer up, and Charlton are insisting that they will not sell Bent for less than their rated value. Charlton, at least publicly, are planning on having his services as they attempt to make a return to the Premiership this season:

"We look forward to Darren starting with us in the Championship next season, which is a massive boost to our chance of returning to the Premier League."

It would seem that the financially sound thing to do would be to sell him for as much as you can and then use that money to bring in some established, inexpensive veteran players and some affordable youngsters if possible. There's no real reason for Charlton to hold on to Bent if they can get full value for him, but there also doesn't seem to be a real reason for Tottenham to acquire him as they already are loaded at the striker position (Defoe, Keane, and Berbatov).